Bourne:

If you haven't already gotten caught up in this fic, do so now.  I cannot wait to see where the author goes with this.  

I Was a Ghost Before You Came

http://bigsciencybrain.livejournal.com/280932.html#cutid1

Author writes in response to a request from the Fic-a-thon held at LJ's Bourne Series

http://community.livejournal.com/thebourneseries/

Yes, I am still intrigued by the Bourne series and working on more fiction.  Have had very little time for this lately.  Am also attempting to do some beta reading for another Bourne author.  Don't look for much posted here.  C'est la vie.


Misc.

And being from, and currently residing in, Wisconsin, I am following with no little interest the goings-on in our own little corner of Hollywood, as director Michael Mann brings his filming crew to Columbus (and possibly other burgs in WI) for work on Public Enemies, a 30s gangster film featuring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis.  It's based on the book of the same name by Bryan Burroughs.  (I believe that will be added to my TBR pile very soon).   A local resident of the Columbus area is posting thoughts here:

http://www.publicenemiescolumbus.blogspot.com/

Title:  The Day in the Life

Author:  Kay Linne

Summary:  Alexander Conklin’s final task is to hunt down his number one black ops assassin, Jason Bourne.  He knows where Bourne is.  The rest is history.

Characters/Pairings:  a closer look at Alexander Conklin, whom I feel was dealt a rather poor hand in the movie(s).     

Rating/Warnings:  PG-13ish, for a little language

Ficathon Recipient/Prompt: lazaefair ;   Request: Conklin.  Anything - his life, Treadstone backstory, thoughts while hunting Jason, whatever.

Spoilers:  for sure the end of The Bourne Identity movie

Beta:  local friend, who knows nothing about the Bourne movies.  All interpretations, mistakes and errors in judgment belong to me.

Disclaimer: Mine!!  Mine!!  The characters ~ they’re not Mine!! 

Author's Notes:  I’ve always loved expanding upon existing scenes.  I had planned to simply detail the first meeting between Alexander Conklin and Jason Bourne.  It grew and slotted itself into the white spaces between the lines.  This is the result.

Bourne Bourne Bourne.

Identity  Supremacy  Ultimatum

I got myself into the Bourne fic-a-thon and am furiously scribbling notes and dialogue and ideas into my notebooks (yes, I still use real paper and pen) and eventually I'll put it all together in some coherent fashion.

In the meantime, I found another copy of The Bourne Ultimatum script - this time a re-write dated August 2006, which includes revisions by Tom Stoppard and Scott Burns.  Closer to the movie than the first one I have, dated September 2005.  Not quite so wild and crazy Bourne.  More controlled, closer to the final product.  The pages are stamped 'Tom Gallop."  Kinda neat, since Tom played Tom Cronin and I am having fun with his character!  :) 

Bourne killed Neski & wife.

The Professor killed Wombosi.

Bourne killed The Professor.

Bourne killed three agents in the Treadstone safehouse in Paris.

Manheim killed Conklin.

Kirill killed an Agency operative and a Russian who had info on the Neski murders.

Kirill killed Marie.

Bourne killed Jarda.

Abbott killed Danny Zorn.

Bourne gave Abbott the gun to commit suicide.

Bourne was involved in the death of Kirill.

Paz killed Simon Ross.

Desh killed Neal Daniels.

Bourne killed Desh.

Otherwise, I believe that the other agents got off with various injuries, and I'm not going to begin to try to tally the cars and drivers that got banged up in the car chases.  LOL!

In addition to this bit of pointless information, Tom Cronin and Pamela Landy are having quite the conversation in my head. 

I got a copy of an early draft of The Bourne Ultimatum script off Ebay.  Sigh.  It's one of my faults.  Nevermind that Matt and Julia signed the cover page.  They do stuff like that.  Is it real?  I don't really care.  I want the story *inside.*

Tony Gilroy wrote a dark piece in the beginning.  Everyone was up to their eyeballs in Treadstone/Blackbriar ~~ cover-ups and lies, illicit dealings and back stabbing.  Haven't finished the whole thing yet, it's a lot to digest.  But I want to share a few parts, parts that I would have died to see filmed.  You see, I am *such* a fan of hurt/comfort tales.  And I *know* Jason Bourne is not Superman.  He gets shot, he gets banged around in cars, he nearly blows out his knee jumping on the ship ~~~ and then we see him all better.  :::rolling eyes:::

From the screenplay The Bourne Ultimatum, labeled:  two   9.22.05.  Wow, is it different from what appears in the movie...

Jason and Nicky drive from Madrid to the coast where they will catch a ferry that will take them across the straits of Gibraltar to Tangiers.  We know a little about their conversation in the cafe.  Eventually we see Nicky and Jason on the ferry. She is looking at him as if she just told him his old dog died. And he is leaning on the rail, eyes closed against an assault of emotion.

Sooner or later they had to talk on that long drive from Madrid to the ferry. Sooner or later, something had to be said. What is she holding back from him? Perhaps it went something like this after they left the cafe ~~

A Black Ops program. 

Creating/operating/maintaining/funding a Kill Squad.

Ward Abbott knew about it.  Maybe even had a hand in starting it up.  He was behind the Wombosi op.  He was also up to his eyeballs in the Neski murders accomplished by Jason Bourne. 

Abbott suggested to Conklin that perhaps it would be in the best interests of everyone to get Wombosi out of the way.  Nykwana Wombosi was a petty dictator with delusions of grandeur and he was threatening to name names if not assisted by a large foreign power.  So there was a need to do away with the threat.  

Conklin seems to have set it up.  He was in charge of the safehouse in Paris where Nicky was working.  He sent Treadstone agent Jason Bourne to take out target Wombosi.  He sent Bourne because Bourne could be invisible, because Bourne did not exist.  Bourne set up the op – he told them where, he told them when, he chose the yacht for the strikepoint.  And then the excrement hit the rotating blades. 

Something happened to Jason Bourne.  He looked into the eyes of one of Wombosi’s children, and he snapped.  His mind told him he could no longer be Jason Bourne.   He got two bullets in the back for his efforts and was left to float alone in the Med.

Meanwhile, back at the CIA, they are scrambling to find Bourne.  Much madness ensues that is The Bourne Identity.  Conklin cannot bring Bourne back, and so ultimately has to pay the price for the op gone sideways.  Abbot has Conklin killed by the agent Manheim.  We never hear from/about him again.  Suspicious?  Or error in continuity.

In tying off the Wombosi op, Abbott dismantled the program ~~ and instated a new one, Blackbriar.  When files surface that would tie Abbott to the murders of Vladimir Neski and his wife, he leaks top secret info to the Russian Gretkov, who benefited greatly from the CIA’s money and Abbott’s involvement.  Somehow, Abbott knows that Jason Bourne is alive and well and living in Goa, India, with his lover, Marie.  Abbott leaks Bourne’s location to the Russian, who sends his agent from the Secret Police to India to kill Bourne.  But Marie gets killed instead, when she trades places with Jason in the front seat of the Land Rover.  The Russian sniper, Kirill, believes he killed Bourne.  He does not find out until later that he messed up.

And Jason Bourne makes good on his threat in The Bourne Supremacy:  There is no measure to how fast and how hard I will bring this fight to your doorstep.

The doorstep is Berlin.  Events unfold that bring out Abbott’s role in Treadstone, his illicit dealings, his operation for personal gain.  His confession taped, he commits suicide and the op is tied off. 

But Jason Bourne is still on the loose.  Wounded on the streets of Moscow, he still feels compelled to make amends to the Neski girl by apologizing for his role in the murder of her parents.  At the end of Supremacy, we see him walking the streets of New York.  This comes round to Ultimatum.

So.  We have this:

Agency personnel involved (or suspected of being involved) with Treadstone:

Alexander Conklin

Ward Abbott

Noah Vosen

Neal Daniels

Albert Hirsch

Martin Marshall

Ezra Kramer 

Agents in the Treadstone program:

The Professor

Castel

Bourne
Manheim

Jarda

Agents in the Blackbriar program:

Desh

Paz

How did they recruit?  We know that Webb volunteered, to ‘save American lives.’  He assured those in charge that he would be whoever they needed him to be.  To me, that patriot button is not enough of an underlying reason for a man to give himself to a group of people who put him though such psychological stress that his real persona, David Webb, was completely covered over, swallowed up by the assassin Jason Bourne.  Or was David Webb more prone to commit these kinds of actions than we are led to believe?  We see him stressed, obviously having a difficult time making the decision to kill, but once he does, his whole demeanor changes.  And then he is welcomed to the program.   But what is in his past that prompts him to commit to so drastic a program?

Do the ‘volunteers/recruits’ have special ops experience?  Are they already more than capable of taking out a target – taking a life?

And we cannot discuss Treadstone without mentioning their less-than-kosher training methods.  Psychological manipulation.  Sleep deprivation.  Torture.  Back during the Cold War, the intelligence agencies experimented with mind altering drugs.  LSD use was prominent.  Did Treadstone pick up on those avenues, broaden and expand upon them, to produce their agents? 

Jason Bourne took out Castel and The Professor.  We do not know what happened to Manheim.  We know that Jarda drove the vehicle which took Jason to Hotel Brecker and room 645 where Vladimir Neski was staying.  We know that Bourne also took out Jarda.

We know that Bourne planned all aspects of the Wombosi op.  He was given a target and he chose where and when.  It appears that the other Treadstone agents were also allowed to handle the kill their own way.

Desh and Paz – they are given explicit directions on who to take out and when.  Or perhaps we just aren’t given enough information to figure out why the newer agents seem to be more robot than man. 

These are my scrambled thoughts.  Share yours.  :)   

Still obsess..er...focusing on Bourne.  
 

Nicky hints of a past relationship in the cafe scene.  But she gives nothing away.  Why?

I had to go see it again, I think I’m possessed.  LOL!  Paid particular attention to that café scene, all those nuances of eye and body.

There’s a relationship there.  Whether or not it’s romantic remains to be seen.  But I tend to think not.  It’s got to be something else.  Something in their past.  The characters are at least 9 years apart in age.  If they knew each other before David Webb volunteered for Treadstone, it would have to have been something like friends, passing acquaintances – not lovers.  Nicky was jail bait at that point!  LOL!  A background check on both Nicky and David should have resulted in knowledge of any crossed paths if they were close.

I can’t see that there would have been time for any romantic relationship during Nicky’s time in Paris, with Jason Bourne in the same city.  Yes, she monitored the agents, but she knew they were dangerous, lethal.  She’d be pretty stupid to get knowingly involved with an assassin.  I can’t imagine her superiors would be too thrilled, either.  Again, the background checks, the levels of testing these people had to undergo precludes any notion of romantic liaisons and entanglements.

Bessides, she’s leery of him.

In fact, she’s downright freakin’ SCARED of him!  He’s pushed a gun in her face more than once.  He cold-cocked her boss in Paris at the Treadstone safe house.

Whatever their relationship in the past, she does not know *this* man.  So I keep thinking.  And then I see Nicky and Jason on the ferry going across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco.  I see him downcast, head bowed, eyes closed, deep in thought – almost as if he’s ashamed of what she’s told him, looking for absolution.  And Nicky – eyeing him so sympathetically.  Drat.  There’s more there than meets the eye.  What the frack did they talk about in the car on the way from Madrid to Tangiers??!!!  Oh, good grief.

Yet more on a timeline:

I’ve found conflicting birthdates for Nicky.  Pam Landy opens her file in Supremacy right after she gets clearance from Director Marshall.  There’s a date of 1981 there.  But later, when questioning Nicky in Amsterdam, the file Pam opens indicates DOB 1979.  In either case, she is in her early 20s when the events of Identity take place – 2002.  And from conversation in Supremacy, she’d been with Treadstone 3 years at the time of the Bourne fiasco.  So she started with the program in 1999.  David Webb as Jason Bourne killed Vladimir Neski and his wife 7 years prior to Supremacy, which I believe took place three years after Identity, so here is a timeline going with Nicky’s birthday as 1979.

1998 Neski murders

David Webb/Jason Bourne is 28.  Nicky Parsons is 19.

I suspect that Webb, a captain before he entered the Treadstone project, may have served in the Army during Desert Storm, 1990-1991.  Possible Delta Force, as I believe he must have had training in special ops before Treadstone took a look at him.  I also believe there must have been something that occurred during that war to prompt him to volunteer for the program – other than just ‘saving American lives.’  This is long before 9/11, which prompted more than a few to volunteer.

Bourne’s first ‘real’ op is in Geneva, date unknown.

Bourne is not just as assassin.  He is a *planner.*  He laid out all the details, made all the arrangements for the Wombosi op.  He did not just receive instructions via phone like Paz and Desh. 

1999   Nicky comes to work for Treadstone in Paris.   Wonder how they recruited her. 

David Webb/Jason Bourne is 29.  Nicky is 20.

2002 Wombosi assassination attempt, Bourne Identity

Jason Bourne is 32.  Nicky Parsons is 23.  

Nicky has worked for Treadstone in Paris for three years, posing as an American student.  She knows Bourne’s file.  But she is not a field agent, and so probably would not have been used as any kind of asset during a covert op.

2005  events of Supremacy

Jason Bourne is 35.  Nicky Parsons is 26. 

She’s in Amsterdam, still be working for the CIA.  Treadstone has been shut down.  But she is not involved in Blackbriar that I can tell.  She goes with Landy, et al, to Berlin, where Bourne holds her at gunpoint.  There is no indication here of any kind of close relationship that Nicky eventually alludes to.

2005  events of Ultimatum

Jason Bourne is 35.  Nicky Parsons is 26.

Nicky was reassigned to Madrid, working with Neal Daniels, after her time in Berlin.  She arrives at the Madrid safehouse just as Bourne does the agents in.  Again, he’s got a gun on her.  But they have a conversation with Vosen via the phone, and both hear Pam Landy’s assessment of non-agreement, and her desire to talk with Bourne.  Nicky is still leery, she doesn’t divulge much – but she gives Vosen the ‘all-clear’ code and does not give away the fact that Bourne is there with her.  The big decision comes when she volunteers her car.  She must have been aware that Daniels was having second thoughts about his involvement in Blackbriar.  And something in her past links her enough to Jason Bourne to prompt her to help him, even though it’s probably a career sinking move on her part.

Onward.  I keep watching and thinking.  Ya never know.  ;)

For the fourth time.  This time a matinee on a Marcus Theatre SuperScreen(TM).  Hubby laughs - did it end the same way?  Actually, he came with me - and was okay with the movie, but admitted that he liked Willis in Live Free or Die Hard better.  Eh, there's no accounting for taste...   LOL!

So what possesses me to watch these films over and over?  I have seen Identity and Supremacy more times than I can count.   I will have the Ultimatum DVD as soon as it's released, and sequester myself in a dark room for multiple viewings.  What draws me to Bourne?  I like Matt Damon well enough.  Not a favorite ~ but his portrayal of the character of Jason Bourne certainly has me by the throat.  

Jason Bourne is a killer.  He's been programmed to be a killer.  He volunteered for the program.  Yet he remains a sympathetic character, put through traumatic events, and possibly redeemable in the end.  So I keep going.

Here's more of what's been bouncing around in my head, continued from  the previous post. 

Wherein Pamela Landy converses with Tom Cronin, and there is possibly more conversation than in the whole of Ultimatum.  LOL!   

Bourne Identity.

Wombosi was supposed to have died three weeks prior to Bourne confronting Conklin in Paris.

Bourne spent two weeks on Giancarlo’s boat.

That leaves one week to get from the Mediterranean coast to Zurich to Paris to Eamon’s house and back to Paris.

How long between Bourne taking out Conklin’s goons at the safehouse and his finding Marie?

Treadstone shut down, Operation Blackbriar put into play at end.

Agents for Treadstone that we know about: Castel. The Professor. Picot. Bourne takes out Castel and the professor. Picot takes out Conklin. 
Jason Bourne's passport:  issued 19 April 1991, expires in 2001

Bourne Supremacy.

“Two years we’ve been scribbling in that notebook.”

“Hasn’t been two years.”

Okay, so how long after Bourne caught up with Marie did they start scribbling in the notebook?

Debriefing report regarding Bourne’s amnesia and Conklin’s death is dated 2002.

Landy: 7 years ago, $2 million went missing and Vladimir Neski was killed.

Bourne’s first op on file was in Geneva. Who got taken out in Geneva?

Nicky’s file indicates date of birth, 28 March 1981. She has alias Corrine Deschamps.

Date of birth on Jason Bourne’s passport 21 August 1969. Issued in 1996.  Which is different from the original 1991 of Identity.   Hmmmmm.
Nicky worked for Treadstone for 3 years prior to the Wombosi fiasco, during which time she posed as an American student in Paris.

Bourne Ultimatum.

Begins six weeks after the Moscow taxi chase & crash in Supremacy.

Bourne claims he’s been searching for his identity for 3 years.

Dates from paperwork:

Webb’s date of birth: 9/13/70.